Power poles, also called service poles or duct posts, are used to bring power or communication lines (or both) from a source location above a false ceiling to a level at which the power or communication outlets are needed, usually near a floor or adjacent a desk. Generally, a power pole is a hollow rectangular tube which is divided internally by a longitudinal wall to isolate the power and communication lines from each other. Power outlets and communication connectors or knockouts are provided for access to the lines.
At the upper end of such a power pole, it is necessary to provide some arrangement for connecting the wires within the pole to the service wires in the ceiling which may be available at junction boxes attached to the building structure or in some other form. Occasionally, the wiring is part of an overall "system" with special plugs, etc. so that the top of the pole requires a mating connector. More often, however, installation is a matter of an electrician connecting wires to each other using solderless connectors, i.e, WIRE-NUTS, or the like. For that purpose, the top of the pole must have some arrangement for enclosing the connections after they have been made in order to satisfy code requirements. Various forms of junction box devices have been proposed but all involve rather complex structures which are expensive to manufacture and time consuming to use.